Aria's blood froze in her veins as Saint Dane tilted his head to look at her. "Did you really think I'd moved on so soon? No, I'm afraid there's one last thing I must address."
He was standing beside the gaping mineshaft, Jani's collar balled tightly in his fist while she clawed at his hand with her injured arm. She swung the torch at his head but his other hand shot up and knocked it cruelly out of hers. It fell away into the darkness of the pit beside them. Now the only light was that which filtered dimly down from the monument above them.
Aria was against the wall of the room, several feet away from the pair, and Jani was gasping in terror as she struggled to get loose. This time, however, her struggles were inhibited by her injuries.
Saint Dane was just barely watching Aria out of the corner of his eye and drawled, "You think you did very well here, do you not? You managed to cow that filthy Milago militia into backing down with your own little battalion, and now everyone seems to be getting along. Though surely you must realize that you've done nothing but cover up the symptoms of a much bigger disease?"
"What?" She croaked.
She'd been so shocked by his abrupt arrival that she could barely speak, let alone reason, but it seemed he was interested in a bit of banter. "You managed to ice the fever of war before it could claim them, but the sickness is still there. Do you believe that I managed to turn the Milago against Bedoowan all by myself? Granted, I did help things along from time to time. A squabble here, an arrest there, a few goods confiscated every now and then. And convincing Raig that a more militant occupation of the village was the only way to maintain order, of course. Such things will do wonders to stir up tension…but the initial cause? Personally, I think the Milago's hatred of the Bedoowan is quite justified."
At last Aria's mind started to move. "Uncle Press told me about you. He said this wasn't the first time you tried to topple Denduron. You were the one who messed everything up last time, weren't you? Fifteen years ago. The arena, the glaze, throwing people down the mineshaft–"
Saint Dane clicked his tongue impatiently. "Ah, so he told you about that, did he? I wondered if he would. Yes, I was here fifteen years ago. Yes, I did play my part in the Bedoowan oppression of the Milago. But I did nothing but play upon the cruelties thought up by the Bedoowan themselves. I may, in short, have fanned the flames…but I am never the one who starts the fire."
His eyes glinted coldly, and Aria wanted desperately to look away. But she forced herself to maintain eye contact. Jani was still struggling in his grip, and Aria was afraid of what would happen at the end of this conversation. "Let her go, Saint Dane. She's been through enough. Put her down!"
She said this with more bravado than she felt, and Saint Dane clearly wasn't fooled. "Hmm. Yes, perhaps she has been through enough." He glanced at the bandages on her weakly flailing arm as he said this. "But the question is, have you?"
Not sure what he meant, she didn't reply, but something in his voice sent a shiver down her spine.
He explained, "Frankly, I had less time than I would have liked to get things ready for round two on this territory. And less time to prepare for you, as well."
He had been preparing for her? But why? It was her uncle he was supposed to be fighting. Why would he have expected her? She hadn't even expected herself!
She was unable to respond as her mind locked in panic. Saint Dane had just reached for his waist and pulled the very same knife he'd drawn a few days ago out of his beltloop. Its silvery edge barely caught the light. "You may think you did well here, but the fact is you had it easy, girl." His voice was a low hiss. "Your suffering has been trivial compared to what Pendragon faced. No Transfer, no arena, no time to teach you what it really means to be a Traveler. The fear. The pain. The loss. Well, belated though the lesson may be, I intent to teach it to you now."
His eyes flickered away from hers and locked on Jani's. Her struggles had been growing more and more furious, but when their eyes met she went totally rigid. Aria watched, helpless, as he brought the knife up.
No. This couldn't be happening. She couldn't be about to watch another friend die, could she?
You didn't watch Alder die. You ran. Are you going to run now?
All you ever do is run!
No. She couldn't. But what else could she do?
With the loss of eye contact her mind was racing. What could she do? What could she do?
She could shoot him, nonlethally. All she needed was to hit his arm, and she was sure she could from here. She reached for her satchel, but to her despair found it was empty. Uncle Press must have taken the gun at some point, maybe this morning before she'd woken. She had no gun, no tak, no weapons, all she had was her own scrawny little self, and even if she could make Saint Dane drop Jani, her leg was injured, there was no way they could outrun him–
Her heart skipped a beat as her eyes dropped to the mineshaft beside them, the low railing around it that barely went up past Saint Dane's knees.
She couldn't stand there and let Jani die. She couldn't, so she didn't even allow herself to think about what she was about to do. All she said was, "Jani, sanjaberries."
Jani was shaking violently, but Aria's words seemed to cut through, just a bit. Her eyes slid over. "What…?"
"Sanjaberries," she repeated, praying Jani would remember exactly how she'd related her first encounter with Saint Dane to Tarek.
Just in time it clicked. As the knife came up, Jani gathered herself, drew her foot back, and kicked.
For the second time that week Saint Dane doubled over in pain, snarling like a dog. He dropped Jani, who stumbled backwards. Though the blow had briefly stunned him, he recovered almost instantly and lashed out with the knife–
–just as Aria flung herself against him, wrapping her arms around his waist and propelling them both over the edge. As focused as he'd been on Jani, and as dark as it was in there without the torch, he hadn't even seen her move.
His eyes widened as he began to topple over the rail, and Jani screamed, "Aria!"
They fell.
Just as gravity began to take them, one of Aria's hands found Saint Dane's wrist and the other shot towards a rail post, her entire arm hooking around it. Furthermore, the rock was rough and craggy, so her entire body caught on the edge of the pit.
That said, as Saint Dane fell and his hand clenched around her wrist, his weight was enough to wrench her arm nearly out of its socket and she shrieked in agony as the wound on her side, so close to being healed, tore open.
She felt warmth run down her side as the injury began to bleed again, and Jani ran over to help. But Saint Dane was still clinging on, and was already scrambling to climb back up. "Run!" Aria cried to Jani.
She was ignored as Jani reached down to pull her up. "No! Just drop him!"
She wanted to, but her hand just wouldn't unclench from his wrist. The thought of dropping a man to his death down a mineshaft, even a man as vile as Saint Dane, was outside her capacity to consider. She held onto him.
She glanced down and wished she hadn't. His eyes looked almost white in the faint light, his teeth were bared in a grimace of rage, and also…
It was a long way down.
At once Aria felt dizzy, and her stomach flipped. She hated heights. Or deeps, as the case may have been.
Jani wasn't giving up. Aria, hurt as she was, croaked at her. "Jani, go. He'll kill you, just run."
She didn't, but it didn't matter. The strains on Aria's arm, on her wrist, on her side were too great. Saint Dane clawed at her from below, Jani grabbed uselessly at her from above, and it just hurt too much. Too much.
She let go of the ledge.
She heard Jani scream as she fell, but all she could feel for the moment was relief as the pain in her side diminished considerably.
The panic of falling, and of imminent death, kicked in a few moments later.
She bit her lip to keep from screaming. She didn't want Jani to hear that. Instead she fell silently, and the light quickly faded. In seconds she was developed in a darkness so complete that even Saint Dane's bright blue eyes couldn't be seen.
She knew he was there, though. She was still clinging to his wrist, and dimly she realized that he was very, very cold.
Another thing she realized dimly was that they were still falling, and had been for at least twelve seconds now. How far had they fallen? Just how far down did this mineshaft go?
His hand was jerked out of her grip, and she heard him growl somewhere beside her. She felt awful. She'd toppled them into a mineshaft. They were both going to die because of her.
She hadn't expected to live long enough to say anything, but they were still falling. Not sure how to express herself, she squeaked out, "Sorry."
A long, very irritated sigh. And they were still falling.
It wasn't silent. Air was rushing loudly by her head as she plummeted towards what must be Denduron's core, and she said, "Uhh, this is a pretty long drop, huh?"
He spat, "Idiot girl. Eelong!"
Her eyes snapped closed as darkness turned to blinding, piercing light and the rushing of wind was replaced with soft, musical chimes.
The mineshaft was a flume.
As gravity vanished and he began drifting gently towards the jungle territory, his eyes locked onto the girl beside him. The light had taken her unawares, and her eyes were scrunched closed.
He straightened out and crossed his arms. By the lights of Solara…stuck in the flume with a Traveler. Not just any Traveler. This Traveler. He supposed he could have utilized his raven or smoke form rather than departing the territory, but her move had taken him so completely off-guard that by the time he'd regained his good sense he'd been far enough down that it would have been a pain to fly back up. His intention had been to kill the brat in front of the girl anyways, and now that plan was out the window.
After a moment her eyes flickered open. She looked completely stunned at the circumstances she now found herself in, and just hovered there, staring at him like a rabbit snared by moonlight.
He glared at her, hoping to convey, nonverbally, exactly how much he despised her at that moment.
She continued staring at him, and after a minute opened her mouth as though to say something. His eyes narrowed to slits and his nostrils flared, causing her mouth to snap closed lest she anger him further. Good. She would be very fortunate indeed if she got out of this predicament without sustaining any more injuries.
Intimidation would not keep her silent for long, though. She swallowed heavily and said, "Um. So, is Eelong another territory…?"
He ground his teeth in frustration, and he fleetingly regretted not making the flumes instantaneous.
"It hardly matters to you, does it not, girl? After all, you don't seem to care much for the Traveler lifestyle."
She blushed and fell silent.
He growled as he turned his head to watch for the end of their journey. What irked him in particular was not only that she'd had the audacity to tackle him again, but also how she had behaved after doing so. He'd felt her hand clinging pitifully to his wrist, heard her whimpered apology as they'd fallen. Had she truly wanted to save him? Had she truly been repentant? Had she truly felt remorse at his seemingly inevitable demise? Surely not. Even Pendragon would not have been so weak, so foolish.
And yet, she'd refused to let go of him.
He glanced back over at her to see her fidgeting. He caught her eye and she asked, "Are you a Traveler, too?"
In a heartbeat he'd snaked around in the vacuum of the flume and wrapped a hand around her throat. He still held the knife, and this he brought to eye-level.
He could not kill her. If the only way he could win his arguments was by eliminating those who debated him, that was tantamount to conceding his point, and this was, as always, a battle of philosophies. That said, this girl had questioned him – twice – and had physically assaulted him – twice. Pendragon had not been so presumptuous. He'd harbored an adequate amount of fear and respect for his adversary. It was time the girl learned some for herself.
He pressed the cold metal of the blade against her face, then let it trail down her neck, over her shoulder, and across her arm. That would do – a scar to match her friend's back on Denduron. Maybe he'd even take a finger or two as a souvenir.
He glanced up into her eyes, eager to see the pain as he began the cut, and froze.
Her eyes were wide, and the white light of the flume had turned them verdant. Emerald. And frightened. He was transfixed.
He could feel her blood pounding through the veins he was throttling. As their eyes remained locked he was once again beset with a sense of infuriating familiarity. It was prodding at him, irritating him. It was like a word right on the edge of the tongue, a name barely forgotten, an itch he couldn't quite scratch.
Who. Was. She?
He searched those emerald orbs, nearly desperate for some clue as to the spirit's identity, when his ears picked up the quickening of the jumbled notes around him.
Her neck twisted in his grip, forcibly breaking their eye contact as a flash of light and gravity swept over them. He fell, letting go of her as his feet touched the ground.
Hot, humid air enveloped him. Silence reigned for only a moment before all the living things which had quieted upon their arrival burst back into din in the wake of the flume's song. Birds warbled and screeched, tree-bound mammals howled and chittered, and insects hummed. A primordial symphony, dulled only slightly by the stone and roots of the cavern that encased them.
Aria had fallen to the ground with the unexpectedness of their arrival and was now backing into the flume again. Her mouth was moving, obviously trying to voice one of those magical words that would carry her away from him. Had she forgotten the name, then?
"D-d-dend-d-d…"
Hm. Perhaps her tongue was simply tied. He stepped forward slowly, each step deliberate, until he stood in front of her. He leaned over, bringing his face close to hers, and examined her features.
Terrified. Absolutely terrified.
Suddenly, he was tired of her. He no longer wanted her to hurt, he simply wanted her gone. Quietly, he said, "Denduron."
The flume sprang to life again and he took a large step back to avoid being drawn into it. She was still gazing fearfully up at him as the white light came and ripped her back to that medieval territory.
He sniffed, turned, and surveyed the area in front of him. She was already out of his mind.
Some of the flume locations, he'd changed. The one in the mine on Denduron, for instance. Though one flume on Eelong remained the same – the gate beneath the great tree on the cliffs – he had made another, closer to the settlement of Black Water and the city that had sprung up between it and Leeandra.
He pondered for a moment. His departure from Denduron hadn't exactly gone according to plan. It did not matter, though. He would see the girl again.
He was done with that territory, and on to this one. Time to get to work.
He took a deep breath, focused his thoughts on the realm from which he drew his power, and prepared to tap into it in earnest. The quigs on Denduron were no longer of use to him. It was Eelong that required their services now. He held up a hand, his fingers twitching like he was feeling for a stray piece of thread, and then brought his thumb and middle finger together, as though to grasp it.
The life-force of the quigs on Denduron.
He snapped his fingers and, a universe away, the beasts winked out of existence.
Only their bodies, of course. The raw, violent energy that possessed them had simply returned to his Solara, waiting impatiently to be harnessed again.
With all the advancements made on this territory, it wouldn't do to manifest them as gars again. A new form would be necessary this time around. Besides, gars would be too easily dispatched by his dear old foe, Kasha.
He considered. Tangs? No, too large and ungainly for the restricted caverns. That being said, there was another reptilian creature on this territory that he was fond of, though it wasn't typically found in this area. Ah, well, sharks weren't naturally found near the flume on Cloral and Ibara had never seen wasps like his.
His hand began clenching against some invisible force as he channeled the force of raw creation. Air was pushed out of the way as matter manifested in its place. Long, curled claws, two on each foot, six feet in total, each attached to a long, spindly, triple-joined leg. Thin, leathery membranes stretched between them and joined to the central body, which was heavily scaled in black and green stripes, as thick as a man's calf, and half a meter long. It ended in a short, wriggling tail tipped with a sharp, pale bone. A thin mane of green hair trailed from its head to its tail and short, deadly sharp spines emanated outwards all around the body, stopping at the legs. The neck was serpentine and extended roughly a foot past the front legs, ending in a head that could be described as dragonish. It's eyes were huge, bulging and empty white. Equally colorless was its underbelly which in nature, like its eyes, was a vibrant crimson red.
The creature, and dozens more like it, flickered into existence all around him. They were empty, motionless, and cold. Then, as he drew upon the particularly violent spirits that were so eager to offer him their brutal services, the creatures writhed into life. White eyes glowed yellow and underbellies flushed with the same sick color. The bone spurs on the tails, too, jaundiced. Legs flailed as his servants tried out their new bodies, spines flexed, and before long they were scaling the walls, pressing themselves into cracks and crevices to await their prey.
Saint Dane's body relaxed, and breathed deeply for a moment. It was always a bit tiring, the creation of the quigs, but a fruitful and entertaining process, nonetheless. Now, where was he?
Ah, yes. His form rippled and shifted. In a moment he was covered in fur and leathers, his blade replaced with a three-pronged tang knife, his lost gun replaced with a powerful slingshot.
Eelong awaited.